Sweat Series 1 of 5: Curry
When I pick an image of a sports player to paint I always look for the glare. Why would I pick certain poses but not others? The easy answer was always, “I don’t know, because I liked it?” But when I dig deeper into my inner train of thoughts there is always one definite compelling answer to why I liked it: I could go into that player’s soul from these images. But how? Well, that would be through his/her eyes. Humans are a species of emotions. Thus sports are attracted to their fan bases because there are a lot of emotions being expressed or exposed to the public during the games. These expressions echo with our normal daily lives of ups and downs. When they are naturally expressed, these emotions are acknowledged. As a painter, that is how I capture and elaborate them. I never try to paint a photo exactly, because the subject is more than that photographic moment. Imagine the next split second from the moment of the capture. What would the face look like? The smile, smirk, squint, sense of relief? All of the facial expressions change constantly without stop. Which is the climactic moment? Was it the image that was captured? Not even the player can tell you. So I really am free to interpret, to put together another form of imagination. Yes the soul still belongs to player, but I had the honor to put it in an art form.
In this painting, I name it the “Sweat Series”. The element of sweat helps depict the rigor of the basketball game. Through his glare we were able to appreciate this soulful moment, nonetheless what he was thinking. Was Curry taking a moment to contemplate, to decide the next move or to figure out what the team strategy was? Only Curry would know.